Sarah Palin

"Sarah Palin"

Tina Fey's sensational portrayal of Sarah Palin is unlike any other political impersonation ever, for one simple reason: it may very well end up defining a major political figure before that figure has defined herself.

Consider SNL's previously most celebrated impersonations. Four others leap to mind: Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford. Dana Carvey as George H.W. Bush. Will Ferrell as George W. Bush. Darrell Hammond as Al Gore.

As much as the NBC-industrial complex wants us to believe those performances affected the elections in which they appeared, I doubt it. The candidates portrayed were already firmly established in the public consciousness when they were parodied. The portrayal that stirred the most talk on the cable yakfests was Hammond's Gore. It was a revelation, highlighting Gore's condescension and his "Me, teacher! Me, teacher!" front-row ass-kissiness. Even so, there was no confusing the man and his parodist. Gore had already been Vice President for eight years.

With Tina Fey and Sarah Palin, it's different. I keep hearing people say that they're confusing Palin and Fey; that when they watched the actual debate, they kept forgetting they weren't watching Tina Fey. This isn't just a testimony to Fey's brilliant performance. It's also testimony to the McCain campaign's flawed rollout of Palin: she really was too sheltered. There's insatiable curiosity about the lady, but we're only getting dribs and drabs. TIna Fey is filling in the rest.

There are of course evident differences between the actual Sarah Palin and Tina's "Sarah Palin".

The actual Sarah Palin, while clearly unprepared for a national campaign, is consumed with ambition and may yet pull it off. She's folksy and flirtatious on the outside, steely on the inside. "Sarah Palin," on the other hand, is more daffy. She wants to rule the world, yes, but she's more of a bubblehead, easily distracted by shiny objects. She's sort of delightful.

The real Sarah Palin plows through her sentences like a Panzer through Poland, butchering innocent sentences, leaving syntactical carnage in her wake. "Sarah Palin" blithely skips from word to word with the blind faith that she'll make it to the other side of the rhetorical rapids without slipping.

The real Sarah Palin believes most of what she says. Or at least you can tell what she believes between the lines. (Her code is pretty obvious.) Meanwhile "Sarah Palin" seems more ... misguided. Somebody told her what to think and, you betcha, she's stickin' with it ... unless someone tells her to change her mind.

Perhaps the best way to understand the difference between Sarah and "Sarah" is through the lens of E!'s The Girls Next Door. The real Sarah Palin is Holly -- eyes fixed on the prize ... the prize being 82 year old Hef. (Holly, in fact, is from Alaska!) Fey's "Sarah Palin" is Bridget from The Girls Next Door. Fun is a major priority. (For those of you wondering, Kendra is a working class Democrat.)

Is this why the McCain camp wanted to postpone the Vice Presidential debates?


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A well known conservative writer used to support Sarah Palin, and genuinely wanted to see her succeed. But after Palin had an interview with Katie Couric, she changed her mind completely.


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Need I say more?


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Republican aides have come out and said that John McCain simply does not know how to fix America's economic meltdown. While McCain thinks he went to Washington this week to aide the bailout dilemma, House Republicans strongly argue that he made matters worse. Does he even know whether or not he's against the bailouts? Watch the clip for more details.


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Why is Sarah Palin crediting a man who performs witchcraft?

Beginning at 9:00pm ET tonight, The Young Turks will provide live play-by-play analysis of the Presidential debates on TheYoungTurks.com. Afterward, the show will have special guests for a little post-debate discussion. So if you are looking for a politically savvy host to deliver live news coverage of the debates, go to www.theyoungturks.com tonight at 9:00pm ET.

It's been quite a ride. They've been through a lot together over the years. And now it looks like they're ready to call it quits. John McCain and the New York Times are splitting up for good.

Or are they?

The romance caught everyone by surprise when it began back in 1999. John ditched his wife Cindy and hit the road for his nationwide "Straight Talk Express" tour. It seemed like a foolhardy midlife crisis stunt: the 63 year old McCain taking on the far bigger-budgeted, more heavily-sold (if disastrously derivative) George W. Bush "Compassionate Conservative" tour. But the whole McCain enterprise had a certain Indie grit about it. (Think Credence Clearwater Revival vs. Creed.) So groupies from every major news organization climbed aboard.

What was the attraction? Well...

1. McCain was charismatic – a lot sexier than Bush.
2. Guilt abatement: the groupie-reporters felt guilty for being the children of draft dodgers, employees of draft dodgers or draft dodgers themselves.
3. In the single greatest act of journalistic passive-aggressiveness, reporters lavished praise on Republican McCain as a way of diminishing Republican Bush, thus insulating themselves from the charge of liberal bias. (In retrospect they would have done us all a favor had they come out as lefties and demolished Bush.)

Whatever the reasons, the attraction was there. And the "Straight Talk Express" became one big candidate-reporter love-in. (Outsiders understood: "Don't Come a-knockin' when the Candidate's Straight-talkin'.") Extra chlorine for this pool of reporters, stat!

But to everyone's surprise, the One he chose as his favorite – the Priscilla to his Elvis, the Lynda to his Paul, the Dale to his Roy – was the Grey Lady: the New York Times. He had known her during his days jamming with the Keating Five. Their relationship wasn't so hot then. But this time it was different.

She soon washed that grey right out of her hair, confirming what everyone suspected: they were in love. She wrote him love notes, calling him "The Maverick." He gave her "full access". All the other groupie-reporters, lacking imagination or personality or an actual budget, copied her style. But they were mere clones.

She stood by him in South Carolina, when the tour went, well, south – only weeks before John hung it up and went back to the Senate and Cindy.

The afterglow of the "Straight Talk" tour lingered, though. The two regularly met and hooked up, out of their minds on Campaign Finance Reform. (I must confess, I've tried CFR and it's just incredibly ... boring.)

But then the relationship started to get screwy. John started to make decisions that she didn't like – like supporting the Iraq War. She decided that his personality had changed, that he'd lost his cred, and she started to pull back.

Then she heard something devastating: he was seeing a lobbyist. She felt betrayed. But she wasn't going to lash out. Instead she wrote a long, long, long letter – so long, in fact, that he found out before she'd finished writing it. So he went public with his version of events first – his "He Said" trumping her "She Said."

You would've thought that would be the end of them – except that she ended up endorsing him for the GOP nomination during the primaries! A romantic rekindling? Or was this just breakup sex?

Whatever it was, it didn't last. When he ended up committing himself to the mysteriously orange-colored Sarah Palin, it was war. (Seriously, the Grey Lady may be old but that chick from Alaska is orange.) And so she ripped into Palin, apparently rendering her mute. (Has Palin lost her voice? Or is she just being ladylike refusing to respond?)

So now McCain has served her with divorce papers – a letter last week from Steve Schmidt lashing out at the Grey Lady's alleged pattern of behavior. Weird, considering they'd rendezvoused only 24 hours before for another "full access" interview.

What explains this co-dependency? Are they using each other: McCain trashing the Times to appeal to his new groupies? The Grey Lady relishing her position, as the One that can still make him nuts – the Ava Gardner to his Sinatra?

Or are they both just a little crazy?

After her questionable interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson, Sarah Palin and the McCain camp decided to take a hiatus from the media. But Palin finally decided do an interview with Katie Couric. After watching the interview, people discovered exactly why she took a hiatus in the first place...she has no idea what she's talking about. Cenk Uygur makes the argument in the clip below:

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CNN has begun the "Free Sarah Palin" movement. If you're wondering what that is, watch the video below.




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John McCain has put his campaign on hold, and asked to postpone the Presidential Debates on Friday. While McCain says he wants to go to Washington to help with the financial bailout situation. But critics say McCain wants to put off the debates for other reasons.




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